Photos by Justin Makler
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Busch Memorial Stadium, located in the heart of the downtown business district, was completed in 1966. That same year, the Gateway Arch opened on the Mississippi riverfront. Today I watched for a few hours as crews worked around the clock removing the old stadium in order to make room for the new in April 2006. Busch Memorial Stadium, located in the heart of the downtown business district, was completed in 1966. That same year, the Gateway Arch opened on the Mississippi riverfront. Today I watched for a few hours as crews worked around the clock removing the old stadium in order to make room for the new in April 2006. | St. Louis 11/11/05 |
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Eastern State Penitentiary, You'll pay $9 admission but it's at least as good as any movie, with cell doors shrieking shut and the voices of actual inmates and guards in your ear as you wander (by yourself, no tour guide here) the (reportedly) haunted buildings. The tour starts right at the heart of the matter: Eastern's mind-warping style of incarceration. Follow Buscemi into Cell Block 1, and see the cell of John Currin, a 22-year-old whose great mistake was stealing a horse. He was Eastern's sixth prisoner after it opened in 1829. Back then, Currin might've been flogged and fined. But the Quakers who designed Eastern wanted to solve the age-old problem of crime through the power of self-reflection. So they locked Currin in an 8-by-12-foot cell for 23 hours a day, with two 30-minute breaks in a bathroom-sized exercise yard next door. Total silence. Neverending solitude. A bath every two or three weeks. Currin got two years of this. Plenty of time to go completely bonkers. Although Currin's fate is lost to time, Buscemi wryly explains that soon the Quakers realized - whoops, this place drives men insane. |
Philly, Pa 10/03/05 |
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Dead Cats, Long necks and a 1965 Chevy. I guess when you live in the middle of nowhere you have to invent your own amusement. If you have ever been to Gosport then you know Kip IS the local amusement. They say you could tell when Kip was going to go out on a hell bent night by the a single wrinkle that would appear on his forhead. Although there are a lot of stories about Kip the one related to the bridge is about how he used to scale the side of the bridge with a six pack of long-necks. He would then sit there and drink the night away, only coming down once all six had found their way to the bottom of the river... Read the rest here. |
Gosport IN 04/05/05 |
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St. James Cemetery's Gazebo: There was supposedly a trap door behind the fireplace that led from the 3 Mile House to the St. James cemetery about 1/2 mile away. The story said that the underground railroad ran from the fireplace too the gazebo in the center of the cemetery. A couple of years ago I started thinking about this strange story and wondered if it was true. Not finding anything online I wondered why I never tried to look at the gazebo. If there was ever a secret passageway in the cemetery if would be easy to spot. The other day I caught myself driving by the cementaery so I pulled a quick u-turn. Sure enough I found that the gazebo had a basement. Although it was filled with misc. junk I could tell that the story may have some merit. |
Edwardsville IL 04/03/05 |
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Jesus Is Watching: I can't remember what we were doing at the time, but my friends mother got really upset with us. Began to explain how we had disappointed Jesus. I remember replying something stupid like, "What he doesn't see won't hurt him". This enraged my friends mother, she glowed red. Grabbed me and Ross by our shirt collars and drug us to the car. She drove about 10 minutes to Bethalto Illinois and stopped off at Roselawn Cemetery. She stopped the car just after dusk in front of the following statue. She yelled at us to get out of the car and to apologize to Jesus. "He can't hear you!", she yelled at an earth shattering volume. We both began to cry as we got out a quick heartfelt, "Sorry". She then had us walk around the statue so that we could see that Jesus was watching no matter where we stood. It's true, the eyes would follow you no matter which angle you were at. Jesus was watching. After getting my drivers license I remember I would drive friends through the cemetery late at night and show them what I learned on that day. Jesus is watching... |
Bethalto Illinois 04/02/05 |
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Lakeview Castle The place was called the Castle, built in 1897 by a hopeless french romantic for his wife. The castle was a 14 room mansion, the entire property was surrounded by a moat that had been stocked with exotic fish. In the early 1900's the Frenchman's wife died and he lost interest in the property and returned to France. Since then the place has been a speak easy, a resort, a military school and even a home for pregnant unwed mothers. In 1960's a couple from Woodriver purchased the property and had grand plans. Shortly after buying the place the couple became sick and the husband passed away. The wife moved into a more modest place and let the property fall into total dismay. It became a teenage party house and was wrecked by vandals. Only to be totally destroyed when a fire was started in March of 73. Today there is only remnants of the fountains, statuary, gazebos and bridges that surrounded the property. Read the full story here! | Hartford Ill 04/01/05 |
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The Amityville House I don't recommend the trip. The house has been modified and isn't as scary looking as it once was and the neighbors don't take kindly to strangers. We didn't even get out of the car before being flipped off my a neighbor driving by. I snapped a couple pictures anyway, I did drive over an hour here. We then headed to find a couple cold Buds at a local pub called JJ's. We didn't even get two sips into our beer before someone asked where we were from and then called us out on why were would be in town. One of the locals with a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips barked, "That fucking house brings out all the fucking city freaks." 'Not like the late 70's, when that movie was made." I couldn't help but think, oh, just wait for the remake...
As a closing remark I have to say that the house wasn't as scary as the locals. |
Amityville NY 02/20/05 |
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New Orleans Trip Huanted Hotels, Cementaries. Nothing like a trip to NOLA for a photo hunt. We stayed at the Bourbon Orleans hotel. Little did we know when we booked the reservations that it’s home to more than 17 ghosts, most of which are children. It is considered the most haunted hotel in the city and children have been seen running in the halls and playing inside the rooms. I learned this after a quick internet search and I knew better then to tell my wife who would have made us leave immediately. I kept this from her until the day we checked out and tonight I’m sleeping on the couch, she wasn’t happy. Every chance I got, I would sneak away and roam the halls with my camera. This was the only photo I found anything slightly strange on. I’m sure it’s nothing but a smudge but it does look like something running across the hallway. My wife is now convinced it’s something may have followed us home. | New Orleans 01/18/05 |
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The abandon Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery in Newark NJ shut it's does in 1982 After reading about the abandoned Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery in Newark NJ in issue 23 of Weird NJ, I decided a trip there since the article mentioned that it was currently being demolished. Weird NJ also stated that the structural unsound bottle could cost anywhere from 60K to 200K to remove. The 60 FT Water Tower was the largest bottle in the world when the Hoffman company opened the Brewery in 1930. The bottle is 185 feet above the street, holds 55,000 gallons of water, up to six men could stand on it's cap and It's made of 1/4 copper plated steal. | Newark, NJ 01/01/05
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Lynx Hall (currently known as the Castle Apartments) is located on Forest Avenue and First Street in Lakewood NJ and will soon be demolished. It was built by Jasper and Rachel Lynch in 1900. Jasper Lynch made his fortune in real estate and was an established golfer and a charter member of the Ocean County Hunt and Country Club. Rachel Lynch was a prominent figure in the Lakewood Society for the prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She hosted extravagant fund-raisers, concerts, and recitals at Lynx Hall to benefit her crusade against cruelty to animals. In November, the Lakewood zoning board granted permission to a developer to raze a 100-year-old house on the New Jersey Registry of Historic Places without any discussion of the house's significance. |
Lakewood, NJ 01/02/05 |